ENGLEWOOD, Colo.—For the second straight spring, Denver Broncos tight end Tony Scheffler ran a routine route at minicamp, planted wrong and felt a searing jolt in his right foot.
Last year, he recovered from the fracture to catch 49 passes for 549 yards and four touchdowns, but he didn’t catch a single pass the first month of the season and spent all year playing catch-up.
Not wanting to wait so long for him to return to form this year, Scheffler and the Broncos embarked on an aggressive treatment plan that included a walking boot, new orthotics and a bone stimulator to speed healing.
It seems to have worked.
Running full-speed without any discernible aftereffects, Scheffler has shined at training camp. On Tuesday, he sneaked behind the secondary and hauled in a 50-yard bulls-eye from quarterback Jay Cutler.
Now, his goal is to supplant Nate Jackson, who’s been lining up with Daniel Graham in two tight-end sets.
Scheffler acknowledges that he’s bothered by being Jackson’s backup but also realizes he still has work to do.
“You’ve just got to keep playing better and hopefully play yourself back into that huddle and until then, you’ve just got to keep making plays,” Scheffler said.
“Yeah, I mean, that’s the goal is to get back out there with Jay.”
Scheffler, a fourth-round draft pick out of Western Michigan, had a slow start to his rookie season, when he struggled to make the adjustment to the NFL. But he caught four touchdown passes in the last month after Cutler supplanted Jake Plummer as the starter with five games to go.
The Broncos are counting on the Cutler-Scheffler combination working early on as they brace for the NFL’s impending punishment of wide receiver Brandon Marshall, whose repeated arrests over the last year is expected to result in at least a two-game suspension to start the season.
“Brandon, he makes five or six (great) plays every practice. So, he’s definitely our go-to guy and we’re going to miss him those first couple of games,” Scheffler said. “But we’ve got guys who are going to step up. We’ve got veterans in Keary Colbert and Darrell Jackson and we’ve got a young Eddie Royal, who’s having a great camp. So, we’ve got guys who are going to step up and once Brandon gets back, it’s full steam ahead.”
Scheffler, who has posted 607 of his 835 career yards (73 percent) and all nine of his career TDs in the second half of the season, trusts he and Cutler can get things going from the start this time.
“If you take a look at what I’ve done toward the second half of each season, you would hope that I could start off that way and kind of carry that throughout the whole season,” Scheffler said. “That’s something I’ve wanted to do, trust me, and something I’m planning on doing, just staying healthy, staying ahead of the game and just kind of naturally let everything take place.
“And I think that’s a reasonable goal for me to be up there among the top tight ends” in the league.
Unlike a year ago, Scheffler said he’s pain-free at this training camp and not thinking about his foot.
“I think it’s definitely behind us,” he said.
And he can’t wait for the Broncos’ first preseason game at Houston on Saturday night.
“I’ve got to play well this season to prove I want to get a part of this,” he said.
EXTRA POINTS:@ C Tom Nalen, who missed the last half of last season with a torn biceps, might miss the rest of training camp because of a slow recovery from offseason knee surgery. The 15-year veteran hasn’t practiced since the first weekend of camp. “I think he has the experience where he doesn’t really need the preseason games,” coach Mike Shanahan said. “Hopefully in the next couple weeks we can get him back and he will be ready for the first regular season game.” … CB Champ Bailey was out Tuesday with a mild right hamstring injury.
